Background: The low level of patient satisfaction recorded in many studies and, at the same time, the level of frustration and burnout, disclosed by medics in the perception of the patient as a ‘problem’, incline to look for the causes of inadequate relationship between physician and patient. Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the level of acceptance of the patient by the medical personnel. The research problem was the acceptance level which was within the range of the communication skills of the nurses and doctors...

Platelet indices could mirror megakaryopoietic activity in immune thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), but its specificity and sensitivity need to be studied. The diagnostic performance of platelet indices was analyzed by receiver-operating characteristic curves, and the probability of true positive (sensitivity) and true negative (specificity) in predicting ITP, myelodysplasia, or controls was determined. Mean platelet volume (MPV) was higher, whereas plateletcrit (PCT) was significantly lower in ITP than in myelodysplasia and controls...

Capture-based next-generation sequencing (NGS) is a potentially useful diagnostic method to measure tumor tissue DNA in blood as it can identify concordant mutations between cell-free DNA (cfDNA) and primary tumor DNA in lung cancer patients. In this study, the sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of capture-based NGS for detecting ALK fusion in plasma cfDNA was assessed. 24 patients with tissue ALK-positivity and 15 who did not harbor ALK fusion were enrolled. 13 ALK-positive samples were identified by capture-based NGS among the 24 samples with tissue ALK-positivity...

BACKGROUND: Human T-lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I) is known to be associated with neoplastic and neurodegenerative changes, and it is believed to be associated with various systemic inflammatory diseases, including Sjögren's syndrome (SS). Although HTLV-I infection is endemic in Brazil, there is no information regarding the association between HTLV-I infection and SS in the Brazilian population. The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of SS in HTLV-I-infected individuals and the prevalence of HTLV-I-infection in individuals diagnosed with SS...

In psychophysiological research, bootstrapping procedures are often used to classify individual participants. How many iterations are required for a reliable bootstrap test is not universally agreed upon. To investigate the number of iterations needed for a stable bootstrap estimate, we reanalyzed P300 data collected in concealed information test paradigms. We also distinguished between the bootstrap and permutations approaches. We compared results in several studies using 100 versus 1,000 versus 10,000 iterations in the bootstrap, and we concluded that 100 iterations were adequate as results from all three iteration numbers correlated highly...

BACKGROUND: Giant cell arteritis (GCA) is a relatively common form of primary systemic vasculitis, which, if left untreated, can lead to permanent sight loss. We compared ultrasound as an alternative diagnostic test with temporal artery biopsy, which may be negative in 9-61% of true cases. OBJECTIVE: To compare the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of ultrasound with biopsy in diagnosing patients with suspected GCA. DESIGN: Prospective multicentre cohort study...

BACKGROUND: Accurately diagnosing the subtype of Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB) is critical for management and genetic counseling. Modern laboratory techniques are largely inaccessible in developing countries, where the diagnosis remains clinical and often inaccurate. OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY: To develop a simple clinical diagnostic tool to aid in the diagnosis and sub typing of EB. METHODS: We developed a matrix indicating presence or absence of a set of distinctive clinical features (rows) for the 9 more prevalent EB subtypes (columns)...

The ability to detect tuberculosis (TB) continues to be a global health care priority. This paper describes the development and preliminary assessment of the clinical accuracy of a heterogeneous immunoassay that integrates a serum pretreatment process with readout by surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) for the low-level detection of mannose-capped lipoarabinomannan (ManLAM). ManLAM is a major virulence factor in the infectious pathology of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) that has been found in the serum and other body fluids of infected patients...

OBJECTIVE: To determine frequency and prognostic factors of peripartum cardiomyopathy. METHODS: The prospective cohort study was conducted from April 2012 to September 2013 at Civil Hospital, Karachi. Cases were collected in the first year, and were then followed up for six months. On clinical and transthoracic 2-D M Mode echocardiography, cases of prepartum peripartum cardiomyopathy were detected. After necessary lab tests, cardiac opinion and treatment, pregnancy was terminated using caesarean section...

BACKGROUND: Knowledge of the epidemiology of primary headache disorders in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) remains very limited. We performed a population-based survey in rural and urban areas of Ethiopia, using methods similar to those of an earlier study in Zambia and tested in multiple other countries by Lifting The Burden. METHODS: In a cross-sectional survey we visited households unannounced in four regions of Ethiopia: the mostly urban populations in Addis Ababa and its environs and rural populations of selected districts in Oromia, Amhara and South Nations Nationalities and People's Regions States (SNNPRS)...

Although contemporary high-throughput -omics methods produce high-dimensional data, the resulting wealth of information is difficult to assess using traditional statistical procedures. Machine learning methods facilitate the detection of additional patterns, beyond the mere identification of lists of features that differ between groups.Here, we demonstrate the utility of (1) supervised classification algorithms in class validation, and (2) unsupervised clustering in class discovery. We use data from our previous work that described the transcriptional profiles of gingival tissue samples obtained from subjects suffering from chronic or aggressive periodontitis (1) to test whether the two diagnostic entities were also characterized by differences on the molecular level, and (2) to search for a novel, alternative classification of periodontitis based on the tissue transcriptomes...

Saliva is an easily accessible fluid that has led to increasing interest in the development of salivary diagnostics. This chapter describes some of the newer tools and procedures for collection, stabilization, and storage of oral fluid matrices that aid in the successful use of saliva as a test specimen. This chapter focuses particularly on nucleic acid components for downstream molecular diagnostic (MDx) testing, since this is probably the area where saliva is likely to have the greatest impact in improving healthcare for the general population...

The study aimed to examine the applicability of carbon nanoparticles as a tracer for lymph node mapping and the related factors of lymph node and No.8p subgroup metastasis in patients with gastric cancer. Clinical data of 50 patients with gastric cancer, who had not received treatment preoperatively and underwent gastrectomy in Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Wuhan Union Hospital, between October 2014 and August 2015, were retrospectively analyzed. These patients were found to have no distant metastasis preoperatively...

Pancreatic cancer is a very aggressive malignancy that is often diagnosed in the advanced stages, with the implication that long-term survivors are extremely rare. Thus, developing new methods for the early detection of pancreatic cancer is an urgent task for current research. To date, nanotechnology offers unprecedented opportunities for cancer therapeutics and diagnosis. The aim of this study is the development of a new pancreatic cancer diagnostic technology based on the exploitation of the nano-bio-interactions between nanoparticles and blood samples...

BACKGROUND: Serum free light chain assay (SFLCA) and κ/λ ratio, and protein electrophoretic methods are used in the diagnosis and monitoring of monoclonal gammopathies. METHODS: Results for serum free light chains, serum and urine protein electrophoreses and immunofixation electrophoreses in 468 patients with a diagnosis of monoclonal gammopathy were compared. The results of the two methods were graded as concordant, non-concordant or discordant with the established diagnoses to assess the relative performance of the methods...

BACKGROUND: Recent research evidence suggests that executive function (EF) is impaired in both pediatric bipolar disorder (PBD) and attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), although the underlying cognitive mechanisms are still unclear. In this study we examined EF, including cognitive and emotional control, in three pediatric groups with overlapping symptoms. METHODS: Sixteen children and adolescents with PBD, 17 children and adolescents with ADHD, Type Combined, and 13 children and adolescents with PBD and comorbid ADHD (PBD+ADHD) (mean age=12...

BACKGROUND: Usually, immunoglobulin M (IgM) serologic analysis is not sufficiently specific to confirm Zika virus (ZIKV) infection. However, since IgM does not cross the placenta, it may be a good marker of infection in neonates. METHODS: We tested blood from 42 mothers and neonates with microcephaly and collected cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) specimens from 30 neonates. Molecular assays were performed for detection of ZIKV, dengue virus, and chikungunya virus; IgM enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays and plaque-reduction neutralization tests (PRNTs) were performed to detect ZIKV and dengue virus...

BACKGROUND: Thyroid nodules are usually diagnosed using fine-needle aspiration (FNA). The sensitivity limitations of FNA result in 10-30% of nodules being classified as "indeterminate". The BRAF(V600E) mutation is associated with papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC). We conducted a systemic review and meta-analysis to evaluate the diagnostic utility of the BRAF(V600E) mutation in indeterminate nodules. METHOD: PUBMED and EMBASE were searched for studies testing for the BRAF(V600E) involving indeterminate nodules (Thy3a, Thy3f, Thy4) and containing information on final surgical histopathology...